Electoral Systems and Political Context
How the Effects of Rules Vary Across New and Established Democracies

This book highlights how new and established democracies differ from one another in the effects of their electoral rules.

Robert G. Moser (Author), Ethan Scheiner (Author)

9781107607996, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 September 2012

303 pages, 29 b/w illus. 22 tables
23.8 x 15.5 x 1.6 cm, 0.44 kg

“Moser and Scheiner force us to reconsider the conditions under which electoral system expectations to play out in practice. The book’s scope is global and its quantitative analysis is at the level of individual districts and legislators – the level at which many key hypotheses about electoral systems logically should be tested, but seldom are. This book will be of interest not only to specialists in electoral systems but also to a broader readership in comparative politics.” – Matthew S. Shugart, University of California, San Diego

Electoral Systems and Political Context illustrates how political and social context conditions the effects of electoral rules. The book examines electoral behavior and outcomes in countries that use 'mixed-member' electoral systems – where voters cast one ballot for a party list under proportional representation (PR) and one for a candidate in a single member district (SMD). Based on comparisons of outcomes under the two different rules used in mixed-member systems, the book highlights how electoral systems' effects – especially strategic voting, the number of parties and women's representation – tend to be different in new democracies from what one usually sees in established democracies. Moreover, electoral systems such as SMDs are usually presumed to constrain the number of parties irrespective of the level of social diversity, but this book demonstrates that social diversity frequently shapes party fragmentation even under such restrictive rules.

1. Introduction: why don't electoral rules have the same effects in all countries?
2. When do the effects of electoral systems diverge from our expectations?
3. Mixed-member electoral systems: how they work and how they work for scholars
4. How democratic experience and party system development condition the effects of electoral rules on disproportionality and the number of parties: theory, measurement, and expectations
5. How democratic experience and party system development condition the effects of electoral rules on disproportionality and the number of parties: what we actually see
6. Political context, electoral rules, and their effects on strategic and personal voting
7. How democratic experience and party system development condition the effect of electoral rules on strategic defection
8. Social diversity, electoral rules, and the number of parties
9. How political context shapes the effect of electoral rules on women's representation
10. Conclusion: why and how political context matters for electoral system effects.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Elections & referenda [JPHF], Political structure & processes [JPH], Comparative politics [JPB]